


That Guy

by birdlight



Category: Bucky Barnes - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Guilt, M/M, MCU Sebastian Stan, Male Friendship, Meta, Old Steve Rogers, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Pre-The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (TV), Secrets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25129288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdlight/pseuds/birdlight
Summary: Nick Fury hires MCU Sebastian Stan to impersonate  Bucky Barnes aka 'The Winter Soldier' for an hour. What could go wrong?  Plenty.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson, James Bucky Barnes & MCU Sebastian Stan
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

“Why are you here?” Sebastian asked, passing his hands through his unruly hair the way he always did when he faced the unexpected. “They told me you were a producer!”

“I am, in my way. Part of my job is checking up on you,” Fury replied. “Things going okay?”

“Ask your buddies over at the FBI, MI6, the SVR, and Interpol. Every time I turn around, I see them. They don’t think I notice. I bet they can tell you I moved for the tenth time and the color of the walls in my new apartment. As far as how I’m doing, this will sound as selfish as hell, I mean I lost friends too, but when I found out that guy disappeared, my life got a hell of a lot better. Then they reversed everything.. and he’s back. Someone even wants to make a movie of his life, starring me. What’s worse, my fans want the thing to happen. Then there’s the internet,” Sebastian said, toying with the food on his plate.

Fury chuckled to himself and made a big act of enjoying his meal, taking a sizable bite out of his sandwich. “You could do worse. I’ve studied your filmography and it’s a bit, shall we say, hit and miss.”

That stung, but Sebastian often bantered about his body of work himself. “Why are you here?”

“Despite some of your choices, you’re a decent actor. There’s a reason you have fans, and not just because of your pretty face. When you do the right project, you shine. I saw you on Broadway. We see the potential.”

Sebastian was beyond falling for flattery. “I’m not replacing my agent. What do you want…?”

“We wish to engage you. For an insignificant task, but it’ll be worth your while.”

“You can’t be serious…”

“It’s a tribute to the Avengers, but the press will be there. Dress like him, stand in the back and let someone take your picture. An hour of your time, max.”

“He has a metal arm.”

“We can replicate that.”

Sebastian sat back hard against the back of the Pullman seat, disregarding the hamburger and fries set in front of him. He wasn’t suffering; there was plenty of money in reserve to live comfortably, but the time between roles was becoming longer. He loved his job and he loathed to admit this to himself, but something was appealing about the proposal. If nothing else, it would be an artistic challenge. “How much are we talking?”

“Enough so you don’t need to work for a full year if you don’t want to. Take the jobs you choose, not the ones you’re forced to take. Be good for your career. Help you pull ahead if you appreciate what I mean.”

“Damn.” Sebastian wanted to stand up and pace up and down the aisles of the modest diner if not for the lunch crowd. Maybe later he could ramble across the parking lot and stew it out in his mind. “What does he think about it?” He had a tough time speaking his name out loud. He had this peculiar superstition that if he didn’t say it, the guy would remain a phantom in his life.

“That’s intriguing. You do give a damn. I understood you hated him,” Fury said as he swallowed a French fry.

“I don’t hate him, I don’t know him, and I don’t want to know him. You didn’t answer my question.”

“He’s fine with it if you are.”

“And what is he going to be doing while I’m impersonating him?”

“That’s classified. He needs to be somewhere else and we don’t want anyone to know where. You have a day to consider it. Meet me here tomorrow.” With those words, Fury finished his drink, threw the cash on the table and left the diner.

Sebastian sipped his coffee and stared out the window, but didn’t see the busy parking area or the highly trafficked road in the distance. His mind moved back to that first time they picked him up and forced him in a high-security cell. They kept him in a compact room and showed him the pictures. That face. His own eyes glaring back at him, but it wasn’t him. A person didn’t have to be an expert to realize something was off about that guy. Sure, now they were claiming he’d taken a direction for the better and helped save the world, but Sebastian was suspicious.

The server stopped by his table to clean away the remnants of his lunch. “I’m sorry, but there are some girls over at a booth on the other side of the room. I think they recognized you,” she whispered as she leaned over to collect the money.

He appreciated her warning because he didn’t want to be rude to anyone because Fury had upset his day. He wasn’t in the mood, but he glanced in their direction and they smiled at him. He put on his premier face and smiled back. They turned away, giggling. He knew the routine. Pictures of him, sitting here, were on the internet right now. Pictures of him with Fury no longer existed or were blurred-out. He didn’t know how they did what they did and never asked. He had a love hate relationship with his fans. Most of the time interacting with them was fun, but sometimes a quote taken out of context or an old blurred picture of him with someone they didn’t like surfaced they would ‘call him out' on him on social media and accuse him of things never considered doing. It shocked him at first, but now he ignored it. Other people handled his online accounts now, and besides, those so-called toxic fans were the minority. Most of the kids were cool.

He returned to his memories. His agent and a lawyer persuaded the authorities he was who he was, a semi-well-known actor, and it was impossible for him to be in Europe when they said he was, and they even took a DNA sample. He’d heard everyone had a doppelganger, but did he have to be that guy? Why was he even considering Fury’s offer?

Well, there was the cash. If Fury was telling the truth, it would be easy money. He never told him this, but despite the inconveniences, there was this undeniable fascination with the other guy and his life, but he always pushed those thoughts aside as being too weird. An idea formed in his head. There was the possibility that if he stepped into this guy’s world for half a minute, his misgivings might go away.

He decided. One hour, standing in a crowd, pretending to be the other guy and allowing someone to take his picture. What could go wrong?


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky tightened the strap holding the knife in place under his jacket and tucked his hair under a cap. He recognized this task was unavoidable, but he felt no enthusiasm for the job. He couldn’t recall the last time he had a solo mission, but this didn’t merit the description. It was more of a there and back excursion.

He noticed when Fury entered the room, but he kept his face angled toward his open locker. Wanda had, in one of her more playful impish moves, stuck a picture on the door of him and Sam, standing together, laughing. He stared at for a moment and contemplated removing it, but slammed the door shut instead.

“So no one else can do this?” Bucky asked, turning around to face him. How long had it been when they first clashed on the streets of D.C when he was someone else? Fury never spoke of it, carrying on with life as if it had never happened, making Bucky wonder if he resorted to using mind-wiping techniques on others during his time as a field operative. He never asked.

“We’ve been through this,” Fury said. “Wanda and Peter are too young, Cap is too old, Sam Wilson has a reputation to uphold now, we have to keep him away from situations like this…”

“Protect Captain America,” Bucky said. “It’ll upset him when he finds out we left him out of this. He could stop them.”

“We don’t want them stopped, we want them eliminated. This is the third time they’ve done this. We’ve done our homework. They’re lone wolves, but dangerous lone wolves, and this is your…”

“My specialty. Wetworks. I get it. So the other guy, he’s okay with all this?”

“The other guy has a name, and yes, he’s okay. No reason he shouldn’t be. He’s making a crapload of money just to be you for an hour.”

“You think anyone else will catch on?”

“Considering how you’ve been keeping to yourself, ever since you and Wilson fell out…”

“We didn’t just fall out, he…”

“I don’t care about what’s wrong, you know you need to fix it, but that’s for later. The point is, this guy’s an actor and even though I wouldn’t tell him this, he’s a damn talented actor. I instructed him to give off some ‘don’t come near me vibes’ and he knew what I meant. He’s got this.”

“So are we going to use him regularly? I don’t want this to turn into a thing. It's not fair to him."

“I find out about the future the same way everybody else does, but for right now, as far as I’m concerned, this is it, but who the hell knows. He might find out he likes it. We need to go. The ceremony starts in thirty minutes.”

Bucky nodded, and the two men left the room, leaving the new compound by a private passage. He was sorry he had to miss the ceremony, but he hoped that guy had an good time.

The drive to the location was unexciting. The black car, full of sensors and munitions, could hold its own against a small armed force, once again reminding Bucky of the day he tore the original one to pieces. He spared a thought for the man taking his place. That he existed was another disconnect in his unreal life. The first time he learned about him he thought it was a joke, but later he saw him on the news, being dragged inside a secure location by a police force and the crawl running across the bottom of the screen. A brief shot of the face and the double-take. This wasn’t a superficial resemblance. That was his own face. During an interview, the man passed it all off as a joke, declaring it was just one of those mysterious coincidences of life. He had made it through the snap, which gave him some respite from the bizarre hand life had dealt him. There was also some of that Hollywood magic thing going on with him. The man didn’t look five years older.

The car came to a stop, interrupting his thoughts. Bucky let himself out without acknowledging Fury. The location was familiar, a former-thriving warehouse district that now comprised nothing but large vacant buildings. He was alone, nothing there but the occasional pigeon. Bits of trash danced across the street, powered by a slight wind. He knew someone had created this route through places where there were no cameras. He dodged back through various alleys, his fists deep in his pockets until he arrived at a building on the end of a short dead-end side street. Pulling down a fire escape, he hoisted himself up and slid into the apartment on the top floor. Everything was waiting for him. The rifle locked and armed, and the line of sight was unobstructed. The angle was risky, but he’d done more with less. He waited.

Ten minutes and they were there. Someone was trying to set up a new presence on the streets and the police could only do so much. Regulations tied their hands.

He picked up the rifle and peered through the scope and marked them for death. They matched the descriptions. Packo and his lieutenant. Not his actual name. Packo was a bulky, balding guy, and beside him was his number one, a younger man wearing glasses. He was to take them both out and leave a void in the leadership.

Taking a breath, he squeezed the trigger, and a bullet rang out. Fat, bald guy disappeared from the scope. In less than a moment, glasses man was reacting.The line was perfect, in the heart…

A third man stepped across his scope and into eternity. 

“Damn!” Bucky said. He stared through the scope again. His bullet had traveled through the unknown victim to his second victim. They were dead. “Where the hell did he come from?” Two people, that’s what they told him. Not three!  _ Damn! _

Bucky was on a schedule and there was no way he could stay around to find out. He returned the rifle back under the loose floorboards for someone else to retrieve. Once again back to the silent lanes, this time going a different way, once again barren of cameras or signs of life. He wanted to run, to smash his metal hand against a wall, to hit things, but he took his time. He saw a list of the horrible violations of his intended targets, but this other person? There was nothing left to do but hope and pray he’d taken out another member of the gang.

Fury was waiting in the appointed spot. “Everything go okay?” He asked as Bucky got in the car.

“Packo and his number two won’t be taking any more hostages,” Bucky said bluntly. Something kept him back from saying more, and he didn’t know why. Maybe everything would blow over, maybe the reports would mention the death of Packo and two of his henchmen at the hands of a rival gang. If he didn’t acknowledge it, maybe he could pretend it didn’t happen.


End file.
